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The Self-Portraits
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Durer had never participated, in a substantial way, in the vast production of
altarpieces in vogue in the workshops of his contemporaries, including his
master, Michael Wolgemut. Altar panels by him are rare, while his devotional
images abound, especially the Madonnas. The most important part of
his work is represented by his portraits.
No other artist of his time made as many self-portraits as Durer. In
Italy, the first "autonomous" self-portrait—that is, unto
itself—that we know of is by Leon Battista Alberti, which has only
survived in a copy. One must also ask oneself if the portrait by
Raphael in the Uffizi is really an autonomous self-portrait, or
rather, if it has been modeled on the one in the School of Athens,
where the Raphael figures together with Sodoma. Neither Leonardo nor
Michelangelo is known to have done self-portraits on panels. As for
the self-portraits of the German artists of that era, one cannot
even comment. With Durer, we actually have two images he made of
himself at thirteen: one silverpoint from 1484 and a
miniature oil on parchment, dated 1484 with the inscription im 13. Iar was ich (I was like this at thirteen), which is probably
the copy of a missing self-portrait.
Other portraits by him show him at twenty and at twenty-two: they
are not official portraits, but introspective images, studies of his
actual character and his own destiny, as shown by the clear
difference between being melancholic and being ill.
Out of the paintings of self-portraits of which we are aware, three
have survived: the self-portrait of 1493 "with sea holly" at the
Louvre; the one "with gloves," of 1498 at the Prado; and the famous one en face of 1500, at the Alte Pinakothek in
Munich. How much importance Durer gave self-portraits as
representing one's own personality is further demonstrated by the
news surrounding the lost portrait: Vasari tells us that he saw it
in Mantua, at the house of Giulio Romano, who had inherited it from
Raphael, to whom, in turn, it had been given by Durer in exchange
for the nude drawings for the Battle of Ostia in the "Stanze" in the
Vatican. This exchange of different gifts clearly shows the
difference between Nordic and Italian art regarding the value of the
subject as an expression of the personality of the artist: for the
one, the self-portrait; for the other, a nude study.
According to Vasari, the self-portrait of Durer was painted with
watercolor on particularly delicate canvas, so that it could be
observed both from the anterior and posterior side. It is an
obvious display of true talent that, besides eternalizing the
features of the artist, was to demonstrate his pictorial ability. It
is presumed that Durer painted it between 1510 and 1515. Given that
Raphael wanted to depict Durer, in the Eliodoro Stanza in the back
sedan bearer of the pope, and supposing that it acted as a gift for
a model, the date of this self-portrait can be narrowed to
approximately 1514.
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Self-Portrait at Thirteen Years Old
1484 |
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Self-Portrait at 13
1484
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna |
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Self-Portrait with a Bandage
1491-92
Graphische Sammlung der Universitätsbibliothek, Erlangen |
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Studies of Self-Portrait, Hand and Pillow
1493
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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Self-Portrait in the Nude
c. 1505
Kunstsammlung, Weimar |
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Self-Portrait
1521
Kunsthalle, Bremen |
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Self-Portrait as the Man of Sorrows
1522
Kunsthalle, Bremen |
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Conclusion
Out of the 189 paintings listed in the complete catalog by Fedja Anzelewsky
(1991), which includes the missing paintings, provided that they are documented
by copies or by written works, only the pictorial works that are definitely, if
not entirely, by Durer himself are presented here.
To these, more than a thousand drawings, about 350 woodcuts and around 130
engravings and etchings should be added. This would mean that the artist Diirer
should not be understood or appreciated only through his painting. Let us not
forget another important part of his work, which represents an exceptional
artistic expression for his era: the watercolors, about sixty of which survive.
If we also consider his numerous treatises, finished and unfinished, we will
manage to grasp the importance of one of the most impressive artists of his time
in all his complexity. Alongside, naturally, are Leonardo, Michelangelo, and
Raphael. In Germany, furthermore, Durer is an exceptional figure, being the
first artist to be interested in the theoretical problems of art.
He discovered and adopted new pictorial techniques, like that of the watercolor;
he developed and brought graphic art to the peak of refinement, from a technical
and compositional standpoint. He also elaborated some artistic concepts that
Italian artists and scholars had proposed and outlined: more specifically, the
geometrical construction of the Roman alphabet (see Letter A) and of the illustrated
reconstruction, and subsequently elaborated the so-called screen, a kind of grid
destined to grasp more precisely the reality of nature, which Alberti had
proposed and described but never depicted.
Outside artistic circles, Durer enjoyed close relationships with humanists—in
particular, Willibald Pirckheimer, his lifelong friend, who, having studied in
Italy for six years, first at Padua and then at Pavia, introduced him to the
world of the Florentine Neoplatonists. Durer owned a rich library, in which
appeared works like the Hypnerotomachla Poliphili and Alberti's De pictura. He
was an artist and a man of universal culture. At the same time, thanks to his
manners of a "grand seigneur," his facility of speech, his charm, and his spirit
in leading conversation, he certainly approached the ideal figure, as postulated
by Baldassar Castiglione, of the "courtier." This is a position, however, he
never actually had, unlike many of his Italian contemporaries. One can perhaps
conclude, as Jacob Burckhardt affirms, that the characteristic of the
Renaissance was the discovery of man and the universe, Durer, more than any on
else, personifies it.
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Construction of the Letter A |
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Draftsmann Draving a Vase
Construction by Leon Battista Alberti |
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Chronological Table
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1471
Albrecht Durer was born 23 May, the third of eighteen children, to the goldsmith
Albrecht Durer and his wife, Barbara Holper. The Durer family—horse and cattle
breeders—was originally from Ajtosfalva in Hungary. The German name and family
coat of arms confirm this: Ajtos, in Hungarian, means "door," and a door lies
open in the center of the Durerian coat of arms. "Door," in German is Tiir, and, in the old spelling, Thur; and Thurer was the first German name of
the family, which was then changed to Durer. His father, also named Albrecht,
left Gyula at a young age, where the family had moved (the grandfather was a
goldsmith), and had gone through Germany and the Netherlands, finally settling
down, at twenty-eight, in Nuremberg in 1455. Here, he entered the workshop of
the goldsmith Hieronymus Holper, whose fifteen-year-old daughter, Barbara, he
married 6 August 1467.
1475
The master goldsmith Albrecht acquired, after his father-in-law's death, a
house-workshop near Michael Wolgemut's workshop, and other important workshops
which belonged to the cultural and artistic elite of Nuremberg.
1483
The younger Albrecht entered his father's workshop to complete a three-year
apprenticeship as a goldsmith.
1486
Instead of continuing to work at his father's, he entered as an apprentice the
workshop of the famous painter and woodcutter Michael Wolgemut, where he
remained for another three-year apprenticeship.
1490
As the family chronicle read, having finished this period and in accordance with
the custom of apprentice-artisans, the younger Albrecht set out on 11 April auf
Wanderschaft, and went to Col mar, Basel, and, toward the end of 1493, to
Strasbourg.
1494
In Mav, he returned to Nuremberg, where he took Agnes
Frey as his wife, 12 July. The plague broke out; in October, Durer
left, and, going through Augsburg and Innsbruck, arrived in Venice.
1495
In the spring, Durer returned to Nuremberg and started his own
workshop.
1500
The Venetian artist Jacobo de' Barbari settled in Nuremberg, the
"counterfeiter" and "illuminist" of Maximilian I. Durer hoped to
learn more about on proportion and perspective under him.
1505
In February, Durer left again for Venice, which he then left for
Rome in the late autumn of 1506, stopping on the way in Bologna and
Florence. He returned to Venice at the beginning of 1507. It is
known that during his sojourn in Italy, the artist kept a sort of
diary, a Schreibpuchle, which unfortunately has been lost.
1506
During his absence from Nuremberg, his wife, Agnes, and his mother,
Barbara, were to sell his woodcuts and engravings, one at the
Frankfurt fair, the other in Nuremberg.
1507
In the spring, Durer returned to Nuremberg, passing through
Augsburg. He hired first Hans Suess from Kulmbach, then Hans Baldung
from Strasbourg, and last, Hans Schaufelein from Nordlingen as
assistants in his workshop. Lorenz Behaim read his horoscope (Rupprich,
1956).
1509
Durer bought a house in Tiergartnertor, since then known as "Durer's
House." The artist was elected Genannter by the council of the city.
1512
Emperor Maximilian arrived in Nuremberg 4 February. With the
assistance of other artists, Durer began to plan the Triumphal Arch
of Maximilian—a monumental woodcut consisting of 192 panels—almost
three and a half meters high and about three meters wide. He
executed other works for the emperor as well, which assured him a
lifelong annuity of 100 florins.
1518
During the summer, Durer went, along with a delegation of
ambassadors from his city, to Augsburg to participate in the Diet.
1519
Maximilian I died 12 January. At the end of April, Durer went to
Zurich with Willibald Pirckheimer and Martin Tucher on a diplomatic
mission.
1520
Angling to have his 100-florin annuity confirmed by the successor of
Maximilian I, Charles V, Durer started off with his wife and
maidservant to the Netherlands 12 July. During the journey, he
stayed in Antwerp, Bruges, Brussels, Mechlin, and Aachen. He
participated in the coronation of the new emperor, and went to
Zeeland, where he probably caught malaria.
1521
In August, after going through Louvain, Aachen, and Cologne—where
his diary breaks off—Durer returned to Nuremberg.
1525
Durer's first theoretical work is published, Die Underweisung der
Messung, a treatise on geometry that he dedicates to his friend
Willibald Pirckheimer.
1527
The publication of his treatise on the fortifications of the city,
castles, and small cities, Etliche underricht zu befes-tigung der
Stett, Schlosz und flecken.
1528
Durer dies 6 April, shortly after turning fifty-seven years old. He
is buried in the Frey family tomb, in Saint John's cemetery; the
following day, the corpse is exhumed to execute a death mask. A lock
of hair is cut off, of which the painter Hans Baldung Grien took
possession, and that is now kept in the Fine Arts Academy in Vienna.
The Vier Bucher von menschlicher Proportion (Four books on the
proportions of the human body) are published, which in the following
years are published in Latin, French, and Italian.
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